Writing Prompt #43 — The Thing from Below

Prompt: You’re skipping rocks across the Loch Ness in Scotland while on a trip, trying to see how far you can go. When you’re on the verge on breaking your own personal record of 60+ skips, a bestial hand extends from out of the water and catches the stone.

I stumbled back, slipping on the wet, round stones scattered along the shore, and fell onto my backside. The gray and moldy green flesh hung from the skeletal body, like wet sheets on a line, rising from under the water, the hand still gripping the stone.

My hands tried to find purchase on the shore, to crawl backwards, away from the thing now standing upon the murky water as if it were solid, but only groping at mud, finding nothing solid, dry.

It moved towards me across the water, sending small ripples around it from its footsteps. Its hand hung at its side, the other entirely gone, ripped or torn off by God only knew. My eyes grew wide and I opened my mouth to scream, but it lodged in my throat, only a gasp escaping me.

It made no sound moving up the shore’s rise. It did not falter or slip on the muck. The ragged, weathered clothing dripped with water stinking of rotten fish. I nearly vomited when it stopped before me, the long, mangled dark hair covering its face.

It flicked the stone in between my urine soaked legs, and gurgled, “Keep it down — I am trying to sleep.”

"This collection of stories comes chock-full of psychological weirdness as well as gritty detailed creature horror, a combination I personally enjoy." — J. Anderson, author of For A Glimpse Beyond the Terminus"Reading The Abyss Beyond the Reflection reminded me of how much fun horror and weird fiction can be. The way everything is described brought the stories to life and every character showed amazing depth." — D. Watson, The All Night Library